When combined with other drugs or products that are used to cut or bulk it up, cocaine can be even more potentially toxic.

The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) reports that the majority of the cocaine product in the United States comes up through Mexico after it is produced in jungle labs in Colombia.

The process for making cocaine into a recreational drug often includes soaking the product in toxic substances such as gasoline.

Spoon Method Full Of Toxins

The manufacturing process alone affects the purity level of the drug, and before it is even distributed to local dealers, it is often full of toxins.

The Journal of Chemical Neuroanatomy reports that levamisole (a deworming agent) is the most commonly used cutting agent in cocaine.

Business Insider warns that fentanyl is increasingly showing up in cocaine, often without a users knowledge, and the results can be deadly.

In 2016, more than a third of all overdose deaths in New York City involved a combination of fentanyl and cocaine.

Impurities will often burn off, and if the drug leaves a reddish-brown or dark stain with resulting residue, it is considered impure.

Many of the adulterants will not show up with this test though, and it can be hard to read the results successfully.

The spoon is heated up to a temperature of 185 degrees, which is the melting point of pure cocaine.

If it melts below that temperature, the sample is determined to be impure.

This test requires precise measurements and can be difficult to perform perfectly.

It is believed that adulterants behave differently in the solution than pure cocaine, and someone with a trained eye observes how the sample responds once placed on the surface of the solution.

The problem with this test is that many adulterants used in cocaine will be able to fool it, and it takes a practiced eye to use the test successfully.

Many of them work in a similar manner; the user dissolves a small amount of cocaine in a provided ampoule full of a clear liquid.

The sample will then change color depending on the level of cocaine it contains.

Generally speaking, the darker the color, the purer the sample.

Some common adulterants, including local anesthetics like lidocaine and procaine, do not show up in these tests.

Since many of the adulterants used to cut cocaine are also white in color, eyeballing a sample will not be a good indicator of its purity.

In fact, there is no way to be exactly sure how pure the cocaine is or what even is in the drug that is being marketed as cocaine on sight alone.

Spoon Method Skin Reactions And

The American Osteopathic College of Occupational and Preventative Medicine warns that between 69 percent and 82 percent of the cocaine found in the United States is cut with levamisole, which can cause serious skin reactions and has anecdotally been called flesh-eating.

They can therefore lead to increased stimulant effects and a raised risk for overdose.

These combinations can exacerbate potential side effects and the odds of an adverse reaction, including overdose and a higher rate of drug dependence and addiction.

Crack Spoon Method